PTO puts trademark application files online

The Patent and Trademark Office is now making official trademark application files, including decisions by trademark examining attorneys, available online. The milestone is part of PTO’s effort to make the trademark registration process fully transparent to the public on the , the Commerce Department agency announced Friday.The Trademark Document Retrieval system (TDR) provides an electronic portal for viewing, downloading and printing an array of information and documents as Adobe Portable Document Format files. All told, the system has more than 460,000 trademark applications totaling more than 8 million document pages.PTO will add new applications to the database as they are filed. The agency estimates that the database will grow by more than 300,000 application files each year. Over the next five years, PTO will also convert its remaining paper files covering about 1.2 million active trademark registrations into digital format for TDR access.“The TDR system improves our ability to provide timely and useful information to business owners as they develop their marks and prepare to file trademark applications,” said Jon Dudas, PTO director and undersecretary of Commerce for intellectual property.TDR builds on the PTO’s First Action System for Trademarks, which replaced paper files and which all trademark-examining attorneys use to review applications.All federally registered and pending trademarks are available to the public at PTO’s Web site. The trademark data includes nearly 2 million pending and registered trademarks dating back to 1885.